


[Fandom stats] Sherlock shipping stats, post-S2

by toastystats (destinationtoast)



Series: Fandom Stats [10]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Meta, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-16
Updated: 2013-09-16
Packaged: 2019-09-19 21:34:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17009619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destinationtoast/pseuds/toastystats
Summary: Popular ships and shipping changes over time, as of Sept 2013.





	[Fandom stats] Sherlock shipping stats, post-S2

**Author's Note:**

> Originally [posted on Tumblr](http://destinationtoast.tumblr.com/post/61453890217/its-time-for-more-sherlock-shipping-stats).

[](https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNfIAP2nBhjNxva3s1oYWyv_nDghuCmNa8INN4wE96IKzjWYKtksd627_5d-6cisA/photo/AF1QipPR8xSxffKtKXsRC0WmJE9H051Z2Y1Hpk0TPQLL?key=UzBPVlZCQ3p1S1VnWHVkM2tDR3lQNGs2VmRBM3BR)

[](https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNfIAP2nBhjNxva3s1oYWyv_nDghuCmNa8INN4wE96IKzjWYKtksd627_5d-6cisA/photo/AF1QipN9GVgYLbNLq5albR-jnH4XenevhjISGpZzzcOg?key=UzBPVlZCQ3p1S1VnWHVkM2tDR3lQNGs2VmRBM3BR)

[](https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNfIAP2nBhjNxva3s1oYWyv_nDghuCmNa8INN4wE96IKzjWYKtksd627_5d-6cisA/photo/AF1QipPybn9aSKBfQrfEKgmiivWQSMkW7yURvCRVVq2d?key=UzBPVlZCQ3p1S1VnWHVkM2tDR3lQNGs2VmRBM3BR)

[](https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNfIAP2nBhjNxva3s1oYWyv_nDghuCmNa8INN4wE96IKzjWYKtksd627_5d-6cisA/photo/AF1QipMAuj2S2r45S1fzF4q4RZeIw52UZ2HTzBmOW88p?key=UzBPVlZCQ3p1S1VnWHVkM2tDR3lQNGs2VmRBM3BR)

[](https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNfIAP2nBhjNxva3s1oYWyv_nDghuCmNa8INN4wE96IKzjWYKtksd627_5d-6cisA/photo/AF1QipOpdrzTh9a9fA-U7tGSJM-tWy4-saEuZnSW7jiF?key=UzBPVlZCQ3p1S1VnWHVkM2tDR3lQNGs2VmRBM3BR)

[](https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNfIAP2nBhjNxva3s1oYWyv_nDghuCmNa8INN4wE96IKzjWYKtksd627_5d-6cisA/photo/AF1QipNXOZi4mUbxtXaNHHGKqE5wSA3FYuckA3SyOiVb?key=UzBPVlZCQ3p1S1VnWHVkM2tDR3lQNGs2VmRBM3BR)

**It’s time for more Sherlock shipping stats!**

**Update:** this post is out of date; check out my full list of [Sherlockian analyses and presentations](http://destinationtoast.tumblr.com/stats#sherlockian) for more recent work.

**TL;DR: Summary.**

  * On AO3, Johnlock is by far the most commonly tagged ship overall, followed by Mystrade, Mormor, Molliarty, and Sherlolly. Mystrade and Mormor have switched ranks since my previous analysis -- I believe i was using the incorrect Mystrade tag last time around and missing a bunch of relevant fanworks.
  * Irene/Molly and Mormor had the most dramatic increase in usage post-S2. Sherlolly, Irene/Sherlock, and Golly (Mollstrade) also saw substantial jumps post-S2.
  * To my surprise, Mystrade usage hasn't changed a whole lot over time.
  * The use of friendship/platonic relationship tags appear to be generally increasing over time (but more data is needed).
  * I think that AO3 may be undercounting some categories, but need to look into it further to be sure.



**Edits to original:**

  * Changed "Jim Moriarty" --> "James Moriarty" (correct metatag picked up a few omitted results)
  * Added Molly/Moriarty, Irene/Molly, Moriarty/JW, and Molly/JW to the analysis 



**Methodology**

This is an initial attempt to look at how Sherlock shipping has changed over time on AO3.  It all stemmed from a conversation about the history of the Mystrade tag, actually, and went from there.  :)  

For this analysis, I looked at the following relationships (I chose not to do all possible combinations of characters so as not to minimize demand on the AO3 servers).  This list is a combination of the relationship tags that AO3 said were most common overall and in various subcategories of the Sherlock fandom (e.g., in F/F or M/M), and a few I threw in because I was interested in them. :)  There may be notable ones that got left out; feel free to point out glaring omissions!

  * Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
  * Sherlock Holmes & John Watson [platonic interactions as opposed to romance]
  * Mycroft Holmes/Lestrade
  * Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper
  * Sebastian Moran/James Moriarty
  * Mary Morstan/John Watson
  * Irene Adler/Sherlock Holmes
  * Irene Adler/Molly Hooper
  * Sherlock Holmes/James Moriarty
  * James Moriarty/John Watson
  * Sherlock Holmes/Lestrade
  * Molly Hooper/Lestrade
  * Molly Hooper/James Moriarty
  * Molly Hooper/John Watson
  * Lestrade/John Watson
  * Mycroft Holmes/John Watson
  * Mycroft Holmes & Sherlock Holmes [platonic interactions]
  * Mycroft Holmes/Sherlock Holmes
  * Sherlock Holmes/Victor Trevor
  * Anthea/Mycroft Holmes
  * Sherlock Holmes/Lestrade/John Watson
  * Sherlock Holmes/Mary Morstan/John Watson
  * Irene Adler/Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
  * Mycroft Holmes/Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
  * Sherlock Holmes/Sarah Sawyer/John Watson



For most characters, there was fairly wide agreement about how to tag their name.  In the case of Lestrade, where we didn't know his first name until S2, there was a large shift from tagging mostly with one name to mostly with two.  I went with "Lestrade" for all ships involving him, because it seems to be the umbrella tag.  But it's quite possible I didn't use the optimal tag in some cases.

[ **Edit:** apparently I should have similarly been using "James Moriarty".  I'll correct that.]

For each of these relationships, I looked at the number of fanworks produced with both the relationship tag and the Sherlock (TV) tag during each month since Sherlock originally aired.

I also looked at how many works were produced overall with the Sherlock (TV) tag each month.  For several of the analyses, I normalized by these overall numbers.

**Results and discussion**

**Fig 1: Most common ship tags overall.**   This graph shows all the relationship tags that are used for at least 1% of the Sherlock (TV) fanworks on AO3.  Johnlock is by far the most common, followed by Mystrade, Mormor, Molliarty, and Sherlolly.

Caveats/notes:

  * This is an updated version of a [previous analysis](http://destinationtoast.tumblr.com/post/53085607366/this-one-goes-out-to-the-makers-and-listeners-of).  I looked at more relationships this time around.  And in the meantime, Mystrade and Mormor have switched places.  I believe this is due to my using "Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade" for the previous analysis, and "Mycroft Holmes/Lestrade" here.
  * Many fanworks may be tagged with multiple relationships; these are not mutually exclusive categories. 
  * Some authors may include relationships without tagging them, so there may be some fanworks missing from this analysis.  
  * These are not necessarily primary or current relationships.  E.g., many works tagged Mary Morstan/John Watson may not be primarily about that relationship, or may be about the ending of that relationship.



**Fig 2 and 3: Change in ship popularity from pre-S2 to post-S2.**   I wanted to look at which tags changed the most dramatically after S2 aired.  I broke down each tag into pre-Jan 2012 usage and usage during and after Jan 2012.  (It's arguable whether this is the best division, but Jan 2012 is when a bunch of Sherlock-related tags started seeing a dramatic change in usage.)

Fig. 2 shows the ships with the greatest change between these two time periods in terms of absolute percentage difference.  So, for instance, the Sherlock Holmes & John Watson tag was used to tag 6.2% of fanworks pre-S2 and 14.3% of fanworks post-S2.  So that's an 8.1% change.   By this metric, Johnlock, Mormor, and Sherlolly show the greatest increase, and Sherstrade the greatest decrease, post-S2.

However, Fig. 2 doesn't do a great job showing proportional changes -- e.g., the Johnlock increase is large in absolute terms, but relatively small compared to how much the Johnlock tag is used overall.  So in Fig. 3, I looked at the percentage change for the tag between S1 and S2.  E.g., the Mormor tag went from being used in 0.47% of fanworks pre-S2 to 4.9% post-S2.  That's a difference of 4.5%, which is 940% of the original 0.47%. From this figure, we see that Irene/Molly, Mormor, Sherlolly, Irene/Sherlock, and Golly (Mollstrade) all had really dramatic jumps in popularity after S2.

(Note: for the purposes of this analysis only, I omitted the ships with fewer than 100 fanworks overall, due to their high volatility.  Irene/Molly also had very few fanworks overall -- 121 total, 120 of which were post-S2, but I included it, as it passed my admittedly arbitrary threshold.)

 **Fig 4: Use of Sherlock/John vs. Sherlock & John over time.  **This graph looks at the percent of Sherlock (TV) fanworks each month that use the Johnlock tag.  The romantic/sexual Johnlock tag has remained fairly steady in usage since the beginning of the show.  The friendship/platonic tag has gotten more popular over time.  Judging from the corresponding increase in Mycroft Holmes & Sherlock Holmes over the same time period, I'm guessing that particular increase may be due in part to increasing use of '&' tags over time on AO3.  But I'd have to do more research into that.

 **Fig 5: use of common non-Johnlock relationship tags over time.**  This graph shows the top 6 most common non-Johnlock ship tags and the percentage of Sherlock (TV) fanworks each month with that tag.  Here we can see the rapid increase in Mormor's usage immediately after S2 aired, and the more gradual rise of Sherlolly, Molliarty, and Mary/John.  Sherstrade dropped slightly in popularity immediately after S2.  Interestingly, Mystrade shows a large spike in popularity immediately pre-S2, but did not show a very large change in usage after S2 aired.  I'd been expecting a significant increase in popularity after Lestrade's line in Hounds -- in fact, I'd initially thought maybe that line had started the whole Mystrade ship.  Nope!  :)

Note:  the reason for the larger amount of volatility in the graph pre-S2 is that there were a lot fewer Sherlock fanworks being produced each month pre-S2, so smallish changes from month-to-month were a much bigger percentage of the overall fandom activity.

 **Fig 6: number of Sherlock (TV) fanworks produced each month.**   You can see a huge spike in number of fanworks per month starting when S2 aired.  For Figs 4 and 5, I divided the monthly totals for each ship by these monthly totals.

 **Tables:** Partial data.  (Let me know if you want to see/access any of the rest of it!)

 **A final note on AO3 search results.** I noticed for some less common ships, some of the fanworks were missing from the AO3 numbers.  E.g., I know a Sherlock Holmes/Sarah Sawyer/John Watson fic (publicly viewable, properly tagged) posted in the past month -- but the month-by-month search results from AO3 indicated that no fics with that tag had been posted in a much longer period of time.  I'm not sure what's going on there, exactly, but I've heard anecdotal reports of similar discrepancies in Bandom.  It's possible AO3 sometimes undercounts things, and if so, I'm not sure how how reliable or stable any of my numbers are.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments welcome, but I’m in the middle of a massive fandom stats backup due to Tumblr purge, so I may be slow to respond.


End file.
